


just before you go (let me go with you)

by billspilledquill



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5+1 Things, Falling In Love, Gen, M/M, Plz talk about shiro’s white hair okay what is happening, Understanding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-26 01:52:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14990192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/billspilledquill/pseuds/billspilledquill
Summary: Fives times Keith felt something for Shiro, and one time he is glad that he didn’t.





	just before you go (let me go with you)

**Author's Note:**

> Me, in exam session: but how about

 

 

**1.**

At the Garrison, Shiro was always smiling in that way that Keith want to touch it.

Something about fire, he thinks. Keith is always playing with fire. And this time, Shiro doesn’t burn under his touch like every other should. _Please_ , he says. Please take him away, and make me the fire, so that flames like this doesn’t flicker this bad.

He reaches out as if he is on a precipice. Keith always reaches out, because his hands are too big, too long, too large to contain Shiro’s face, and because he doesn’t need to reach out when Shiro is near, because he is here, and their clothes brush against the other, and in a small miracle of time, it doesn’t burn him like it used to.

Shiro is sitting on the deck before Keith rushes in to grab his arm hard enough to bruise. Shiro doesn’t complain, because he is too busy looking at the stars, because he was too tired to move, because it’s Keith, so he lets him hurt him, and he tries not to think too much of the latter option, there, for awhile.

“Keith,” Shiro says with a sigh. “Did you want to speak to me?”

And so Keith doesn’t speak and let his hand trail unto Shiro’s arm (his real one— before Keith let him go and injure himself again, again, again), and a vein was throbbing there, and Keith holds tighter, just in case if it explodes.

“Keith,” he asks again, because he is always considerate like that. “What’s wrong?”

You, he wants to say. You. Me. The universe. Something is wrong, and if one of us has to be, it should be us. _Us, us, us._

Instead, Keith looks at Shiro, looks into the dark pupils and nothing else, and so he looks at the moon as well, in a way. And he wishes: don’t go. Don’t go and let me hurt you again, don’t go and I’ll protect you from myself. Don’t go because you’re here, you’re here, and I don’t want to be the only one who’s wrong about whatever we are, don’t—

“Spare me some pictures?” He asks. And Shiro laughs, and oh, there’s stars as well.

“We aren’t allowed pictures, but I’ll tell you all about it when I get back, okay?”

He nods, and Keith allows himself to think that only the stars and the moon are necessary for the sky to look as magnificent as this.

 

 

**2.**

He doesn’t exactly understand it.

Iverson was yelling at his face, at _something_ — for something unnecessarily loud and stupid, and Keith yells back, he always chokes on his own saliva for something he probably didn’t do, or even matter. He remembers that things start not to matter when the stars are missing in the sky. They are just not that bright, and Keith needs light to understand.

And so the tears come, but not all at once. Because Iverson is still in front of him, and now he wishes that he were dead, and not Keith. He should be the one dying, suffocating under the pressure of the collision, not Keith. So he punches him, and wonders if this is his last moment, and hopes so.

Because someone is dead, so he has also to be so? Yes, yes, _yes._

“I don’t understand!” Iverson is holding his cheek as if it were aflame. “I told you it was a pilot error!”

He still doesn’t exactly understand when he lands another punch on the captain’s face neither, he believed, and continues to believe so, just for the sake of the argument.

 

 

 **3.**  

Sometimes Keith wonders if Shiro is hovering around some kind edgeless mountain, and waits for someone to push him, just a little.

Shiro is just here, standing there, with his two legs and one arm. And Keith decides it would be too embarrassing if he just melts on the ground, because the Castle is very old and damaging property is passed, he won’t do it again.

(So he melts, by blinking his eyes over and over again, just to not make some irretrievable disaster.)

“Shiro,” he calls, and Shiro turns to him and smile. And so he calls again, just to make sure. Shiro tilts his head, an eyebrow raised.

“Shiro,” he says again, then another time just because, “Shiro.”

And so Shiro understands, and doesn’t speak this time around. Keith knows that they have done this before: he takes his hand, and leads him to view the beautiful sky that lays behind them, his feet on the ground, and Shiro’s too. The mountain is a little ahead of them, a little behind them.

Keith wishes to embrace him one last time, just before the crash happened, and Shiro disappears again, before the wind of the mountain catches him, and bring him away. Keith didn’t even have time to say his name again, lest he said it too many times his tongue must be burning against his palette, and he screams. 

 

 

**4.**

Shiro: Keith, you need to get yourself together.

Keith: I am.

Shiro: Keith— I need you to stay with me, okay?

Keith: I am.

Shiro: Stay focused.

Keith: I am.

Shiro: Are you okay?

Keith: I am. Are _you_?

Keith: Shiro?

 

 

**5.**

He hates it. Hates everything Shiro makes when he feels like nothing. Hates the scream that follows him when another screams begins.

And so he says, “Kill me,” and means it, just this time.

And suddenly becomes tender; Keith looks at the tender lines of Shiro’s face and jaw, and lets Shiro screams, and even like this, on the ground, with their faces covered with dirt and salt and blood, Shiro’s eyes are tender and soft enough to grab the moon and let her melt against his palm.

I can’t live without you, he says and does not say. I can’t believe you are here. I can’t wait to hold you in my arms when this all stops. I can’t wait to die for you to take me in your arms.

I can’t wait to live for me to see you alive, alive, _alive_.

And so he says, this time, “I won’t kill you,” and Shiro’s eyes widens. Keith wants to kiss the creases under his eyes away, and wants to close Shiro’s eyes to feel the lashes brushing his fingers, the soft drumming of his eyes underneath.

He can’t wait.

 

 

**+1**

There’s no gratitude, at least not yet.

Shiro is in his arms, and he feels nothing particular, he doesn’t thanks the universe for him to come back, because _he_ brought him back, he doesn’t thanks Shiro to be back, because here is where he is supposed to be.

And so, Keith doesn’t feel like some puzzle pieces back together, doesn’t feel the need to believe it, because this is how things are supposed to be: Shiro, Keith, _us_.

He decides the hair change is just a bonus, and kisses it, just a little longer for the universe to turn back its way to normal. 

 

 


End file.
